Izabela Szymańska
Mosaics
A Construction-Grammar-Based Approach to Translation
ISBN 978-83-7507-146-7
B5, 271 pages, diagrams, Name index, Subject index
Dr Izabela Szymańska is Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, Warsaw University. She is interested in theoretical linguistics, especially the Construction Grammar model of language, and in translation studies, especially in the linguistic and cultural barriers in the translation process and in the translation of children’s literature.
The monograph combines these two lines of research, exploring the applicability of Construction Grammar, with its interpretive component, Frame Semantics, as an integrative framework for the description of the translation process and its limitations, as well as a wide range of translation theory issues.
The inspiration to look at translation again from a linguistic perspective stems from the simple assumption that translation consists in producing texts in particular socio–cultural conditions and that texts are realised in language. Recognising the tremendous impact of a multitude of extra–linguistic and extra–textual factors on the final shape of the translated text (including the projected addressees and their assumed state of knowledge, the aesthetic and ideological demands of the target culture, the functioning of the target texts in target culture systems, the accepted norms of translation practice, etc.) which have been most fruitfully studied within the recent socio–cultural approaches to translation studies, it has to be admitted that all the translational purposes have to be achieved through the use of language.
The main purpose of this study is to explore the applicability of a linguistic model to describing and explaining the process of translation and the factors which influence the translator’s choices. The model proposed as the basis for an approach to translation is Construction Grammar, a framework developed since the late 1980s by Charles Fillmore and his disciples.
[from Introduction]
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I. Points of orientation
Chapter 1. Beyond the text and back: the changing role of linguistic theories in translation studies
1.1. Introduction
1.2. From linguistic to text–linguistic and pragmatic approaches
1.3. The cultural turn
1.4. Back to linguistics through cognitive approaches
Chapter 2. Mapping out the territory: major issues to be addressed
2.1. The multidimensionality of equivalence
2.2. Prototypical expectations concerning a translated text
2.2.1. The default concept of a translation
2.2.2. Rendering meaning in units of similar structure
2.2.3. Naturalness
2.3. Selected models of the translation process
2.4. The inseparability of form and meaning as a source of functionalism in translation theory
2.5. Metaphors of translation
2.6. Conclusion
PART II. Constructionism
Chapter 3. Frame Semantics
3.1. Introduction
3.2. The Case Grammar connection
3.3. The interpretive facet of Frame Semantics
3.3.1. Semantics of understanding (U–semantics)
3.3.2. Interpretation as interaction of scenes and frames3.3.3. The encyclopaedic view of meaning
3.3.4. Frame redefined as a conceptual structure
3.3.5. The potential of U–semantics
3.4. The lexical–semantic facet of Frame Semantics
3.4.1. Towards lexical–semantic frames
3.4.2. FrameNet as a formalised application of Frame Semantics
3.4.3. The issue of delimiting frames
3.5. The consequences of the duality of Frame Semantics
3.6. Examples of frame–based text analyses
3.7. Frame Semantics applied to translation studies
3.8. Conclusions
Chapter 4. Construction Grammar
4.1. Introduction
4.2. The cognitive dimension
4.3. The definition and status of construction
4.4. The inseparability of form and meaning: the functional dimension
4.5. Non–modularity and non–derivationality
4.6. The integration of constructions in constructs
4.7. Coercion
4.8. Core and periphery
4.9. Inheritance hierarchy
4.10. The role of Frame Semantics in CxG
4.11. Cross–linguistic comparison: the language–specificity of constructions
4.12. New directions in constructional research
4.12.1. Collostructions
4.12.2. Discourse patterns
4.13. Conclusion: outlook to translation
PART III. Constructional insights into translation
Chapter 5. Constructionism as a framework for describing translation
5.1. Translation re–constructed
5.1.1. Translation as representation
5.1.2. Interpretation as knowledge activation
5.1.3. Non–modular two–plane production
5.1.4. Cross–linguistic communication
5.1.5. Constructional resistance in re–expression
5.1.6. Language system and language use
5.1.7. The multidimensionality of equivalence and prioritising
5.1.8. The non–algorithmical nature of translation
5.1.9. Naturalness
5.1.10. Residual issues
5.2. An integrative framework
5.3. A constructional model of translation
5.4. The model exemplified: a case study of the Polish translation of Jeffrey Archer’s “You’ll never live to regret it.”
5.5. Mosaic as a constructional metaphor of translation
5.6. Conclusion
Chapter 6. The constructional approach in translation analysis: case studies
6.1. Overview
6.2. An English periphrastic causative construction in Polish translations: partial matching
6.2.1. The properties of the construction
6.2.2. Translation: gains and losses
6.3. Constructions and the “poetics of grammar”
6.4. Play on idioms and its translation in the constructional perspective
6.4.1. Wordplay and constructional resistance
6.4.2. Model and counter–model: a constructional interpretation
6.4.3. Play on idioms in a translated text: activating networks
6.5. Allusive wordplay: exploring a usage–based model
6.6. Translating with phonetic priority: entanglement
6.7. Social distance as a problem in translation: the pragmatic in constructions
6.7.1. Forms of address in the constructional perspective
6.7.2. Constructional resistance in translating forms of address.
6.8. Conclusion
Chapter 7. Linguistic problems of translation theory revisited
7.1. Unit of translation
7.2. Shifts
7.3. Translationese
7.4. Postscript: translated texts as a source of data for contrastive analysis in a constructional model
Conclusion
References
Subject index
Name index
Appendix: glossing symbols
Inne tematy w dziale Kultura
